Page 94 - The Language of Humour

WRITTEN TEXTS—LITERATURE 81
Elizabeth had never been more at a loss to make her feelings
appear what they were not. It was necessary to laugh, when she
would rather have cried. Her father had most cruelly mortified
her, by what he said of Mr Darcy’s indifference.

Laughter cuts Elizabeth off from the possibility of romance and blinds
her father to other people’s feelings.

Extension
You have seen two examples of the way that humour can be used in
novels. The variety of styles and purposes of humour in prose fiction is
so wide that these two examples only scatch the surface (see also
Sanger 1998). If you wish to investigate this area further, it would be
best to choose a text that you find genuinely humorous and then use the
framework outlined in Units 2, 3, 4 and 5 to provide a direction for your
analysis.

Poetry
This section can also do no more than indicate a few examples of types
of humour that are found in poetry. Sometimes the purpose is simply to
entertain: there were examples in Units 2 and 3 that were jokes using
the form of poetry. Sometimes the purpose is more ‘serious’ and the
poetry may be termed ‘satire’.
In this eighteenth-century extract, from ‘Epistle to Doctor
Arbuthnot’, Alexander Pope produces a biting portait of the character
Sporus. Although he has used an invented name, readers of the time
would recognise his target as a living writer. As such, perhaps this type
of humour should be termed ‘lampoon’, rather than satire. (A. refers to
Dr Arbuthnot and P. to Pope.)

Let Sporus tremble—A. What, that thing of silk,
Sporus, that mere white curd of ass’s milk?
Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel,
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?
P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings;
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,
Yet wit ne’er tastes, and beauty ne’er enjoys: